Today I thought I would start a Grow Log for my Chilli Season which usually starts the 1st June, which is the first day of Winter for us here in Australia. However I have been so busy with making sauces and keeping up with demand that I have had to start a bit later than usual, 3 weeks later in fact on the 24th June 2012.

After deciding which varieties I wanted to grow this year, I started my first lot of 140 chilli seeds. Before I planted the seeds in the soil, this year I did some reading on “Osmopriming” and decided to give this a try. (Usually I give them a 12 hour soak in Camomile tea, the reason behind this is that the small amount of tannins contained within the tea help to soften the outer shell of the seeds enabling the seed to sprout sooner.)

First I gave them a soak in a solution of 1% concentration Potassium nitrate KNO3 commonly called “saltpetre” for 24 hours at room temperature then thoroughly rinsed the seeds in clean water. After this I sterilized my growing medium by boiling water and then pouring the water over the jiffy pellets that I normally use, then when they had cooled sufficiently I began sowing my seeds, in the jiffy pellets I had labelled at no deeper than 5mm. Next I placed them in under a propagation dome on a thermostatically controlled heat pad.

Seeds began to sprout from day 3 onwards, an improvement on previous years when they were soaked in the camomile tea solution, previously seeds began to sprout from 7 to 10 days onwards and the percentage of viable seeds had also risen.

Three weeks later on the 15thJuly the second lot of 150 chilli seeds were planted. The previous seedlings ready for the next stage, were now potted up into small white plastic cups with drainage holes and placed into the seedling light box. Containing eight florescent grow lights with internal dimensions of 150mm x 50mm x 50mm and built in exhaust fan to prevent heat build-up and another small fan for air circulation.

I used a mixture of seedling potting mix with sustained release fertilizer, coco-fibre to help retain moister and perlite which is also a good way to add air to the mix, as it is porous and the pores are mainly air-filled. This is because unlike in a sponge, the pores are not inter-connected. This means that when perlite is wetted, water doesn’t get into all the pores. In fact, perlite only holds about 10% of its volume as water when wet, with the rest being mainly air, to this was added a ¼ strength ph 6.4 adjusted fertilizer and a pro-biotic liquid booster.